The first is that people actually think through their positions and choose the one they think is correct, or just, or what have you. THIS IS SIMPLY NEVER TRUE. A lot of people have deluded themselves into thinking they have, but their rationales are actually rationalizations, and saying they aren’t is dishonest. Political positions are a result of ‘life scripts’, things which you have learned subconsciously as ‘workable strategies’ and ‘things in my own self-interest’. All the talk of political platforms and reasoning and lofty ideals? Just sugar-coating of things like anger, self-aggrandizement, expediency, push-back, hidden assumptions, etc. This holds for everyone, regardless of their espoused views.

The second is the more significant: that leaders have choices. This is so far beyond true that it is laughable. The more political power you have, the fewer options you have in how it is applied. Or, as I often state it, Kim Jong Un doesn’t get to choose what he has for dinner most nights.

Trump? Clinton? Irrelevant. If Gore had won in 2000, we would still have been at war in Iraq in 2003. If Nader had won, the same. If Harry Brown had won, if BUCHANAN had won, if freaking LAROUCHE had won, the war would have gone exactly as it had, with only some wiggle room on the details. The Affordable Care Act? That was already on Congress’ docket, in exactly the form it eventually took, in 2005, and would have been voted on – and passed – under Shrub had it not been for some committee delays.

People - and by this I mean H. sapiens as a species - need to get over themselves. We aren’t as important – even in our own lives – as we like to think. We're just some little fellows in a great big universe, after all, and we don’t even have any magic rings.

Fluid mechanics can often be used to describe and predict humans in large numbers. So what?

Neuroscience is more and more debunking the idea of free-will. So what?

All human related events above a certain scale are cumulative. So what?

We still live here. We are still affected by what is happening around us. Even if it is all just a result of cause and effect, we still have to behave as if it wasn't.

Read up on Daniel Dennett's Compatibilism stance. He goes into why even if free-will, as classically defined, doesn't exist we still need to behave as if it did. The machine breaks down if the cogs stop working. The machine is us, so we will suffer when it breaks down. It is in our best interests, free will or not, to continue being little cogs in this machine.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:Most political discussion is predicated on two fallacies.

The first is that people actually think through their positions and choose the one they think is correct, or just, or what have you. THIS IS SIMPLY NEVER TRUE. A lot of people have deluded themselves into thinking they have, but their rationales are actually rationalizations, and saying they aren’t is dishonest. Political positions are a result of ‘life scripts’, things which you have learned subconsciously as ‘workable strategies’ and ‘things in my own self-interest’. All the talk of political platforms and reasoning and lofty ideals? Just sugar-coating of things like anger, self-aggrandizement, expediency, push-back, hidden assumptions, etc. This holds for everyone, regardless of their espoused views.

Firstly, how is this a fallacy? I'm also confused as to what the difference is between what you're calling rationales and rationalizations. I can believe a political decision is the "correct" one BECAUSE it's in my own self-interest. What's dishonest about that? Alternatively I can believe a decision is "correct" because even though it may cost me something directly (money for example), I am willing to give up said money for whatever the course of action is. Why I'm willing to do so can have multiple reasons; future self interest, altruism or even something like revenge. Sure many people can try to hide things like self-interest behind a guise of altruism or the like, but stating that EVERYONE ALWAYS does that, is almost certainly wrong.

The second is the more significant: that leaders have choices. This is so far beyond true that it is laughable. The more political power you have, the fewer options you have in how it is applied. Or, as I often state it, Kim Jong Un doesn’t get to choose what he has for dinner most nights.

I'd be quite surprised that Kim Jong Un doesn't decide what he eats for dinner. Certainly the US president can make that decision for himself. I'm even more certain that even if that task was delegated to someone else to make the actual decision, should something arrive that they absolutely can't stand, it would be sent back and something else would be made for them.

People - and by this I mean H. sapiens as a species - need to get over themselves. We aren’t as important – even in our own lives – as we like to think. We're just some little fellows in a great big universe, after all, and we don’t even have any magic rings.

Well thing is, as much as I believe in a deterministic universe at my own level, I have no way to use that determinism to predict anything. I can do what my cognition tells me to do and make what I perceive to be decisions. Sure they may have been predetermined due to whatever particles interacting with my brain or the like, but I have no way to quantify that nor use it to predict my future. So even without believing in free will, I end up still acting as though my decisions are my own. I'm not really sure how you'd do anything else actually.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:Most political discussion is predicated on two fallacies.

The first is that people actually think through their positions and choose the one they think is correct, or just, or what have you. THIS IS SIMPLY NEVER TRUE. A lot of people have deluded themselves into thinking they have, but their rationales are actually rationalizations, and saying they aren’t is dishonest. Political positions are a result of ‘life scripts’, things which you have learned subconsciously as ‘workable strategies’ and ‘things in my own self-interest’. All the talk of political platforms and reasoning and lofty ideals? Just sugar-coating of things like anger, self-aggrandizement, expediency, push-back, hidden assumptions, etc. This holds for everyone, regardless of their espoused views.

Actually, it's usually taken as a given that most people don't think things through - in fact, a lot of modern campaigns are built around that very idea. That is why you'll hear politicians (and no, not just Trump) rely on vague arguments that are based more on emotion than anything else. And even people who do think things through are generally looking at their own self-interest before anything else. A lot of them believe that their own self-interest coincides with the interests of others, but that isn't a requirement.

The second is the more significant: that leaders have choices. This is so far beyond true that it is laughable. The more political power you have, the fewer options you have in how it is applied. Or, as I often state it, Kim Jong Un doesn’t get to choose what he has for dinner most nights.

Eh, no... what you're saying here is just silly. Sorry.

It's true that at the highest levels of government, there is more involved when it comes to turning a political decision into action, just by the sheer scale of what has to change. It's a hell of a lot harder to implement policy on a national scale than it is one a local scale. So in that, you're correct.

But that isn't even remotely the same thing as political leaders not having choices. Political leaders absolutely have choices; and those choices absolutely do matter.

I can guarantee you that if Kim Jong Un wants a steak, he gets a fucking steak. And that it's done exactly the way he wanted it.

Trump? Clinton? Irrelevant. If Gore had won in 2000, we would still have been at war in Iraq in 2003. If Nader had won, the same. If Harry Brown had won, if BUCHANAN had won, if freaking LAROUCHE had won, the war would have gone exactly as it had, with only some wiggle room on the details.

Quite possibly. Contrary to popular opinion, the invasion of Iraq was more than just Dubya deciding to go after the mean man who pissed off his dad. There was a lot of pressure, both politically and economically, to take action against Iraq. But it's not certain that we would have invaded if, say, Gore had been president - and it's definitely not certain that an invasion, had it happened, wouldn't have been significantly different. For example, a lot of people (regardless of party) would have preferred a quick assault that took out Saddam and other key people and then left. Other people would have preferred an even more complete takeover than what Dubya ended up with.

The Affordable Care Act? That was already on Congress’ docket, in exactly the form it eventually took, in 2005, and would have been voted on – and passed – under Shrub had it not been for some committee delays.

And Shrub would have vetoed the bill as it was signed. So would McCain, had he won. And since the bill as it was signed was passed along purely party lines, and the democrats didn't have a veto-proof majority, that means that either a) the bill would have failed, or b) the bill would have been significantly changed in order to get republican support. To suggest otherwise is woefully naive. No president would sign a bill that had received no support from his own party, and that wasn't popular with voters of his own party.

People - and by this I mean H. sapiens as a species - need to get over themselves. We aren’t as important – even in our own lives – as we like to think. We're just some little fellows in a great big universe, after all, and we don’t even have any magic rings.

Sure. Nothing anybody has ever done has ever really mattered. In a few billion years the Earth will be engulfed by the sun anyway, so fuck it.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:Most political discussion is predicated on two fallacies.

The first is that people actually think through their positions and choose the one they think is correct, or just, or what have you. THIS IS SIMPLY NEVER TRUE. A lot of people have deluded themselves into thinking they have, but their rationales are actually rationalizations, and saying they aren’t is dishonest. Political positions are a result of ‘life scripts’, things which you have learned subconsciously as ‘workable strategies’ and ‘things in my own self-interest’. All the talk of political platforms and reasoning and lofty ideals? Just sugar-coating of things like anger, self-aggrandizement, expediency, push-back, hidden assumptions, etc. This holds for everyone, regardless of their espoused views.

Believe or not some people do actually think about political options. Sure their choice is influenced by emotion but that isn't exactly a new idea.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:The second is the more significant: that leaders have choices. This is so far beyond true that it is laughable. The more political power you have, the fewer options you have in how it is applied. Or, as I often state it, Kim Jong Un doesn’t get to choose what he has for dinner most nights.

@Schol-R-LEA: If there is no choice, why are you pretending to start a discussion? Your words, your choices, their all preordained. As far as you are concerned, you have no choice, you have no rational decisions or statements you can make.

You think you have educated us about some deeper truth that we are not in control of our thoughts? THIS IS SIMPLY NEVER TRUE.

Simply put, world leaders do have choice and effect things. They aren't gods, they can only effect so much, and some things set in motion can't be stopped by something as petty as a world leader.

I see no reason to discuss my thoughts, as you will just say they are all preordained by my environment. What logic can I use, when you say that logic is not from me?

Flintstone wrote:@Schol-R-LEA: If there is no choice, why are you pretending to start a discussion? Your words, your choices, their all preordained. As far as you are concerned, you have no choice, you have no rational decisions or statements you can make.

You think you have educated us about some deeper truth that we are not in control of our thoughts? THIS IS SIMPLY NEVER TRUE.

Simply put, world leaders do have choice and effect things. They aren't gods, they can only effect so much, and some things set in motion can't be stopped by something as petty as a world leader.

I see no reason to discuss my thoughts, as you will just say they are all preordained by my environment. What logic can I use, when you say that logic is not from me?

i think he's more saying things are inherently determinate by factors that are out of hand anyway. maybe things do happen differently, but HOW different are they really? terrorists gonna terrorist. troops gonna troop. people are ultimately fruitless when it comes to organizing a true path bound by philosophy for the greater amelioration of society and the world at large. it's basically just people going with the way things have been and the president (in most cases) is just a pretty face they put over the whole thing to make it feel a certain way to the american audience. people argue and argue, does anything get done? does anyone change their mind? does anyone really learn something that improves the world with their newly-refined intelligence?

maybe on a large collective scale there is socio-political evolution but mostly it is just us being cattle to ideology as it wants us to be.

It's more that the people with your attitude pathologically reject leadership by anyone who thinks and acts differently from the horrible pseud attitude you've exhibited. Insincerity is the only thing you'll accept as a sign of intelligence and a badge of leadership. To the point that you destroy people at every level who actually care, reflexively, until you've created a self-fulfilling prophecy in which everyone who might lead you out of hell occupies the lowest, least credible, least powerful strata of society.

Flintstone wrote:@Schol-R-LEA: If there is no choice, why are you pretending to start a discussion? Your words, your choices, their all preordained. As far as you are concerned, you have no choice, you have no rational decisions or statements you can make.

You think you have educated us about some deeper truth that we are not in control of our thoughts? THIS IS SIMPLY NEVER TRUE.

Simply put, world leaders do have choice and effect things. They aren't gods, they can only effect so much, and some things set in motion can't be stopped by something as petty as a world leader.

I see no reason to discuss my thoughts, as you will just say they are all preordained by my environment. What logic can I use, when you say that logic is not from me?

i think he's more saying things are inherently determinate by factors that are out of hand anyway.

Which is patently absurd, and really a sad defeatist way of thinking.

maybe things do happen differently, but HOW different are they really? terrorists gonna terrorist. troops gonna troop. people are ultimately fruitless when it comes to organizing a true path bound by philosophy for the greater amelioration of society and the world at large.

But that's kinda like saying "People are always going to need oxygen..." - it's true, but ultimately pointless. Yes, it's likely that we'll always have terrorists for one cause or another; and that we'll always have troops, and so forth. But that doesn't mean the world doesn't change, and it certainly doesn't mean it's not worth trying to initiate change.

And the reason you've not seen any "true path bound by philosophy for the greater amelioration of society and the world at large" is because not everyone (read as "hardly anyone") agrees on what that would actually be. Anyone who's benchmark for change is that everyone comes around to their way of thinking (whatever it might be) is in for a whole lifetime of disappointment.

it's basically just people going with the way things have been and the president (in most cases) is just a pretty face they put over the whole thing to make it feel a certain way to the american audience. people argue and argue, does anything get done? does anyone change their mind? does anyone really learn something that improves the world with their newly-refined intelligence?

We had major changes in civil rights half a century ago. People changed how they were thinking - or at least, enough people did to force changes in policies. Obviously that change hasn't gone far enough, but to suggest that it never happened is ludicrous. We're in the midst of another civil rights shift today - there is still a long way to go, but it's happening.

maybe on a large collective scale there is socio-political evolution but mostly it is just us being cattle to ideology as it wants us to be.

There is no "it" there is only us. Society and politics are a reflection of us; or at the very least what we're willing to put up with.